Aggressive Wellington Shuts Down River

January 27, 2006|By Shandel Richardson Staff Writer

WELLINGTON — The Wellington girls' soccer team scored an early goal and had the opportunity to play it safe, but the Wolverines stayed aggressive and rolled to a 4-0 victory Thursday over Spanish River in the Class 6A regional quarterfinals.

"We did not change a thing," Wellington coach Mike Kozlowski said. "We felt comfortable with how things were going. It was a `if it was working, why fix it' kind of a thing."

Wellington (17-4) scored with 20 minutes, 24 seconds left in the first half on Lindsey Wilkinson's goal. The Wolverines increased the lead after a shot by Noah Saleh nearly seven minutes later.

The game was completely broken open when Spanish River lost its top scorer, Dana Reisert, to a knee injury when she collided with a Wellington player. Reisert never returned. A few moments after Reisert was carted off the field, Wilkinson chased a pass on a breakaway, outrunning the defender to the ball and scoring to make it 3-0.

Wilkinson added another goal in the second half, completing the hat trick.

"We were looking for the first goal," Wilkinson said. "Really, when you get the first goal, you have motivation to go on."

Spanish River ended its season at 13-3-4 after being hit with a rash of injuries the past two games. Noel Mercado was unavailable Thursday after being injured in the previous game.

"We already were too thin to begin with," Spanish River coach Kevin Turner said. "We had a couple of other players knocked out here and there. We were suffering a bit from the injury front.

"But give all the credit to Wellington. They didn't win this game because we were short-handed. They won this game because they are a good team."

Next up for Wellington is defending champion Douglas in the regional semis on Tuesday.